Ipswich Town boss Paul Lambert is impressed with what he’s seen of the Blues’ academy during his early weeks of his reign.

Ipswich manager Paul Lambert in the stands at Colchester to watch Trevoh Chalobah Andre Dozzell and Flynn Downes play for England U20s against Germany Picture Pagepix

While the Scot’s main concern is trying to guide the first-team away from the bottom of the Championship table, he has kept a close eye on the academy set-up and has attended Under 23 games all the way down to the Under 15s.

And he’s been impressed by the standard of football in the younger age groups.

“But nobody knows what’s going to happen to them in the teenage years when they leave school and they discover nightclubs and alcohol and things like that, it’s true.

“I think it’s important they have to stay on their path and do things the right way and sacrifice a lot of stuff, and if they do that they’ve got a chance. Especially the younger ones, you have to keep them on track.”

“I think it’s great but you can have the best academy in the world but if you’re not producing players there’s no benefit of it,” he said.

“You’ve got to produce players and clubs like Ipswich have to produce their own players and I’m always of the view that if you’re young enough I think you’re good enough I think I’ll throw you in because you have to learn at some point.

“You learn, you go back out the side and you come back in and it was really at 16 that I started to make a move on it and it went from there. I needed the manager to have the belief in me to throw me in.”

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